Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day Meaning
Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 18 Summary
#Stanza 1
If I should compare
you to a summer's day, you would appear to be more beautiful and more gentle
than it. Rough winds shake the much-loved rosebuds of May, and summer's tenure
is only for a short time.
#Stanza 2
#Stanza 3
#Concluding Couplet
Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 18 Analysis
Addressed to the Fair Youth
Sonnet 18 (Shall I
Compare thee to a Summer's Day) is included in the sonnet sequence entitled
Shakespeare's Sonnets. It belongs to the first group of poems (1-126) addressed
to the 'Fair Youth' whose identity remains covered in mystery.
Assumed Identity of
Fair Youth
As to the identity of
his friend, the fair youth, there has been a good deal of controversy among the
critics. The Earl of Southampton and the Earl of Pembroke are the two who
dispute the honour of being Shakespeare’s friend and the subject of the sugared
sonnets. Mr. Fowler has rightly put it, “We have no means of deciding whether
Mr. W. H. (the ‘online begetter’) is William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, or
Henry Wroithesly, Earl of Southampton or another.”
Also Read:
👉Shakespeare’s Use of Irony in My Mistress
Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet no. 130)
👉6 Most Useful Short Notes from Shakespeare's
Sonnet No. 18, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?
👉Shakespeare's Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds (Sonnet 116) Analysis
👉Shakespearean Sonnet 29: Summary and Analysis
(When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes)
👉Complete
Analysis on Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 130, My Mistress' Eyes are nothing like
the Sun
Individual Touch in the Sonnet
Through this sonnet
the poet pays tribute to male beauty and thereby follows the similar tradition
of Greek and Latin poetry that come to England (together with the celebration
of masculine love) with the advent of the Renaissance. In it he refers
to his friend's 'eternal summer' which shall not fade' by virtue of his poetic art.
The 'summer' metaphorically stands for beauty, and its unfading nature he
borrows from the Platonic conception of Ideal (Absolute or Archetypal) Beauty
which is different from Natural Beauty that is subject to changes and
declination.
The Poet Convinced of
the Return of Love
Although 'a summer's
day' is the pinnacle (=highest point) of beauty' in a country like England, yet
he proposes to show the fair youth to be more lovely and more temperate'
(gentle; sweet, moderate) than such a day. This he does for his devotion to him
and for friendship's sake. "The beginning of this friendship,' A. C.
Bradley rightly remarks, 'seems to have been something like a falling in love.'
Shakespeare could never have offered love had he not been sure that the love
was reciprocated.
Some Salient Features of the Sonnet
Sonnet 18 is the first of the sonnets that became
'very famous' by setting before us the fearful problem of turning it into
prose. Besides the above, the sonnet earned attention for two other reasons,
too: certainty of love and Shakespeare's confidence in the quality of his
verse. This Sonnet is magnificent throughout from the perfect beauty of the
opening quatrain to the sweep and rush of the triumphant final couplet. The
rhythms are varied with the subtlest skill, and the majestic line - 'But thy
eternal summer shall not fade’ reverberates like a stroke on a gong.
Natural Summer and the Youth's Summer
When the sonnet begins with the question 'Shall I
compare thee to a summer's day?" we do not have the slightest idea that
the poet's intention is to establish the superiority of human beauty over the
natural one. We rather thought that the reverse would take place.
Also Read:
Despite the majority view that a summer's day is the
most beautiful thing one can think of in the English climate, the poet goes on
to point out its defects one by one. Rough winds often shake the darling (rose)
buds of May' (which was then included in the summer season). Summer's 'lease'
(i.e. duration) is also for a short while, it being the shortest season of the
country. Sometimes the sun ('the eye of heaven') shines too hot and frequently
its brightness (gold complexion') is 'dimmed' by the presence of clouds in the
sky. Finally, the beauty of all beautiful things (particularly the rose and the
sun) 'declines' or in 'untrimmed' = despoiled) as a result of 'chance'
accident) or 'course (= onward movement that brings about changes of seasons)
of nature.
In contrast stands the Friend's 'eternal
summer', which does not 'fade', like the rose, nor 'lose possession, as one may
forfeit a 'lease', nor wander in death's 'shade', like the sun in the Antipodes
( any of the two places on the earth's surface diametrically opposite each
other).
Immortalization-through-Verse Convention
The octave ends with the observation that the beauty
of every beautiful thing or person becomes subject to a process of inevitable
and irreversible deterioration after a time (‘every fair from fair sometime
declines') on account of chance or nature's changing course'. This immediately
brings to the poet's mind the fact that the physical beauty of the fair youth
is likewise subject to decay because of the aforesaid causes.
The poet's love to his friend and his concern about
his beauty is such that he cannot allow this to happen. He remembers the
special power that he possesses by virtue of which he can confer immortality on
the loved one. Emboldened by this he assures his friend in this way:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
This
immortalization-through-verse theme has received wide attention from critics.
A. L. Rowse remarks: "Though a convention with Renaissance poets, it was in
this case prophetically justified." Another critic states: "The poet's
boast that his poem would make his friend immortal is not peculiar, it was the
fashion of the age to boast in this way."
Hidden Meaning Behind
Nature's Description
To establish the
superiority of human beauty over nature's the poet in the octave has made use
of descriptive terms drawn from the world of nature.
The third line- 'Rough
winds do shake the darling buds of May', for example, is filled with the most
delicate and tender solicitude (= care or concern) for the fragility of beauty
- and not just the beauty of buds
The fourth line- 'And
summer's lease hath all too short a date', suggests that the bloom (greatest
perfection) of beauty or the prime of youth in the human case lasts only for a
short period.
The fifth line- 'Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines', suggests that even the most
seemingly benign forces of nature, the eye of heaven', can induce drought and
parch the skin' which is a sure sign of the eventual loss of beauty.
The sixth line- ‘And
often is his gold complexion dimmed', hints the frequent changes of fortune
which affects a man's mental state (i.e. he becomes sorrowful with the loss of
happiness). It is, thus concerned with mutability.
The last two lines of
the octave shows that there is no remedy against gradual loss of beauty and
that to be despoiled or stripped of external ornament is an inevitable process
that every human being must face.
Shall I Compare Thee to Summer's Day Theme
Thoughts of a literary
immortality through the poets verse inspire this sonnet. Eternal lines of verse
will conquer Death and Time. The beauty of the friend far exceeds the beauty of
Nature. As long as man will read his verse, they will remember the beauty of
the friend, though his body is reduced to dust.
Imagery
The sonnet is rich in
imagery. The majority of the images have been drawn from the field of nature.
Of these the most prominent are: a summer's day, rough winds, the darling buds
of May, summer's lease, the eye of heaven, every fair (= beautiful thing or
person), shines, declines, dimmed, untrimmed, eternal summer, shade and eternal
lines. There are also different types of images in the poem: visual (gold
complexion), tactile (winds), olfactory (buds of May), auditory (brag), thermal
(hot) and kinesthetic (nature's changing course).
Rhetorical Devices
The poem also uses
some figures of speech (metaphor in 'a summer's day' and 'eternal summer',
periphrasis in the eye of heaven', and personification in 'Nor shall death
brag') as well as a symbol (in 'the darling buds of May' which may be variously
interpreted).
Diction
The poet's mastery in
diction can be found in such expressions as 'more lovely and temperate',
'summer's lease', 'every fair from fair sometime declines' and 'thy eternal
summer shall not fade!
Rhyme Scheme
The poem deserves
attention as a sonnet. It maintains the Shakespearean rhyme-scheme (i.e. three
quatrains (abab; eded; efe) and a couplet (88) but is Petrarchan in its
thought-division (the poem being clearly divisible into two parts: the octave
and the sestet).
Sonnet Structure
A single thought based
on a contrast (mutability versus eternity; changeable beauty in nature versus
stable and unfading beauty in art) runs through the poem and imparts it that
unity of thought for which a sonnet is distinct from other forms of poetry. It
is written in iambic pentameter with sufficient variations (the first foot of
the second line being trochaic with pyrrhic and spondee placed respectively in
the first and second feet of the fifth line) to free it from the charges of
mechanical regularity.
Technical Beauty
Technical mastery
apart, the poem contains a sincere personal voice as well as universal
statements (such as 'every fair from for sometimes declines' or 'summer's base
hath all too short a date') for which Legouis rightly regarded it as one of the
‘precious pearls of Elizabethan lyricism'.
0 Comments
Post a Comment